


Forget the Flowers

by Argyle



Category: Good Omens
Genre: M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-14
Updated: 2005-02-14
Packaged: 2019-02-11 19:53:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12942522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: Roses, regrets, and invitations. (London, 1923)





	Forget the Flowers

The clocks were striking one as Crowley stepped into Aziraphale’s shop.

“Crowley, dear boy, how-- how nice it is to see you,” the angel stammered. He glanced down at a brown parcel in his hands, held it against his chest as though uncertain of what to do with it, and at last pushed it into a desk drawer.

“Not disturbing you, am I?” Crowley asked, neither expecting nor really caring enough to listen for an answer. He shrugged off his jacket and set his hat on the stand.

“Oh, no.” Aziraphale smiled placidly. “I was... merely preparing for the arrival of a customer.”

“A customer?” Crowley repeated incredulously. “That’s interesting.”

“Well, don’t let’s forget ourselves.” There was an unmistakable note of menace in his voice as he said this.

“Come again?”

“One must keep up appearances when given the opportunity. In fact I...” Aziraphale trailed off, a frown crossing his features. He glanced over his shoulder, to the door, and back to Crowley. “Do you hear something?”

“I believe you have a phone call.”

“A phone call? But how... oh.” He began to rummage through the wooden crates that were stacked along the wall, displacing delicate manuscripts and all manner of documents, invoices, and memorandums, and with a short cry of sudden recollection, he stood upright and hurried to the cupboard above the sink. “Ah, here we are.” He picked up the receiver. “Hello? Oh, yes. Yes, this is he. Yes. Oh, how d’you do? Yes, it’s been _quite_ a while, hasn’t it? Very well, thank you!”

Crowley shuddered; crossing to the desk, he retrieved the parcel that Aziraphale had been so quick to hide away upon his arrival. It was wrapped in plain brown paper, its seams carefully sealed, and was strung on either end with a smooth length of string. With a momentary pricking of caution, he paused to glance in Aziraphale’s direction, but made no effort to stifle the low sound of his laughter as he ripped it open.

It was... it was...

“Bloody typical.”

Although he had been halfway expecting it to be a book, he still felt a dull sort of disappointment at the sight of one.

Indeed, it appeared to be one excruciatingly long block of text, and his eyes began to glaze over as he flipped to the last page [1] and began to read. “‘...that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes...’”

Crowley looked up.

A slow smile spread across his face.

He glanced at the nondescript cover, the brown paper wrapping and string that lay discarded on the floor, and back to the text. A strange sensation spread from his cheeks to his stomach, settling in his fingers and toes.

It was almost too easy.

Crowley waited for Aziraphale to hang up and for his eyes to widen to comical proportions as he saw what it was that Crowley had in his hands. Clearing his throat, he continued, “‘...to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.’” He caught Aziraphale’s lowered gaze and grinned. “I wasn’t aware that they had put smut back onto the reading lists, angel.”

Aziraphale’s face drained visibly of color. “It’s literature,” he said quietly.

“Of course,” Crowley replied. He stood, arched his back, and kept the book just out of Aziraphale’s reach. “This one’s been banned, hasn’t it?”

“Only because we live in a barbarous age which lacks the ability to recognize truth and beauty when it arises, and it does so, every so often.”

“Ah.” Crowley clicked his tongue. “You’re willfully distributing banned materials to unwitting mortals,” he said, shaking his head. “Frankly, I’m impressed.”

“Yes, well, you needn’t be. There is nothing unusual going on here.” He sighed and extended his hand. “Now, if you’ll kindly--”

“How much profit are you making on each of these?”

Aziraphale looked genuinely affronted, his brow knit and his arms folded across his chest. “None, I assure you.”

“Five guineas?”

“No.”

“ _Ten?_ ”

Aziraphale bit his lip.

“I might’ve known.” Crowley tossed the book into the air and couldn’t help but smile as Aziraphale bounded forward to catch it. “I’m certain that your _customer_ ,” he chuckled, “will be very pleased to have a copy on hand in the lavatory.”

“She’ll be pleased to be immersed in the _poetry_ that by all rights ought to be available on every street corner, right next to the _Times_ and _The World of Billiards_.”

“Wouldn’t that squelch your market?”

As Aziraphale summoned up his most purposeful scowl and worked out what was no doubt an appropriately sour retort, the phone began to ring again. He picked it up and his features softened at once. “Yes? Oh, thank you for calling!” he chirped, turning away. “Yes, I had _so_ hoped that this would be in time...”

Crowley snorted and turned towards the shelves, pulling books down at random, and idly wondered what else the angel was hiding.

“No, my dear, I’ll buy the flowers myself,” Aziraphale said suddenly. He had twisted the thin phone chord around his fingertips as he paced behind the counter with light, absentminded steps. “Why, I was considering something along the lines of red roses. Yes, that’s right, long-stemmed. What? _Orchids?_ Aren’t they rather, er...” Arching a brow, he apparently considered the other end’s argument for luxury. “Oh, all right. Yes, I’ll certainly leave out the white ones, if you like.” He nodded and smiled into the receiver. “Three o’clock, then! Good-bye!”

Crowley sighed.

“Well, I’m glad that’s settled.” Aziraphale replaced the receiver on its hooks and rubbed his hands together briskly. Without bothering to relieve Crowley’s offhanded anticipation, he re-wrapped the book and, making a visible decision against the string, adorned it with a bright pink bow. He placed the parcel back into the drawer with careful attention and hummed softly under his breath.

“What are the flowers for?” Crowley asked at length, forcing a strain of boredom into his voice as he thumbed through a seventeenth century periodical on wig maintenance [2].

“Oh, only a little get together I’m hosting this afternoon.”

“A little get together? For whom? The Custard Pie Appreciation Consortium?”

“Well, no.” Aziraphale hesitated. “It’s just a few of my people. Anael, Zuphlas, Raziel, Cathetel... and Walter. You remember Walter, don’t you?”

“No,” Crowley mumbled irritably and re-shelved the book. He glanced towards the window; it was beginning to rain. “No, I don’t.”

“Ah, that’s right. Corporal principality of Pangaea, made his name in postage stamps -- quite a coup for the mailroom, let me say.” He shrugged affably, folding his hands before him. “That was a bit _after_ , I suppose. You know how it-- er, where are you going?”

“I’ve just remembered that there’s some business I need to take care of.”

“I would have mentioned it earlier, but it somehow slipped my mind. No accounting for it. We’re just so frightfully busy this time of year, what with Saint Valentine’s Day [3] and all of that.”

“Right.” Crowley buttoned his jacket and reached for his hat. “I’ll see you around.”

“Believe me, I would always welcome you to stay! Of course, it wasn’t even _my_ idea.” Aziraphale followed Crowley to the door, raising a hand to stop him, though he paused before his fingertips reached Crowley’s shoulder. “It was rather sprung on me, if you must know.” He cleared his throat. “I remembered to buy a jar of that raspberry jam from Harrods that you’ve taken such a fancy to.”

This gave Crowley pause -- it _was_ a rather good jam -- but he found himself unable to stifle the swell of sickness that settled to the pit of his stomach. What was the world coming to when one ran the risk of not being invited to tasteless bureaucratic functions put on by the enemy camp? He shook his head, stepped onto the kerb, and didn’t glance back again until he heard the familiar jingle of the shop’s bell and the metallic clank of the latch.

It would be a fine day, he assured himself, and he would spend it without a second thought to certain people.

This was London, after all.

At its inception, the city had been an original joint-venture of sorts, but when one looked past the obvious perks of history, culture, and curry, it was one of the world’s foremost focal points of corruption and debauchery, verse [4] and villainy, and a place for all manner of overpriced goods and services that were best left out of sight.

It was home.

And so, sitting down on a bench, his arm draped languidly over its back, Crowley ate a peach and listened to the crunching, metallic cries of a three car pile-up.

He smoked cigarettes and ate at a fashionable pub, stepped into a cinema and willed members of Parliament to spend more money on gifts for their mistresses than for their wives, read newspaper headlines and listened to the chimes.

The day wore on, soon becoming evening, and he turned up the collar of his jacket as the rain softened into gentle curls of mist. It was almost as an afterthought that he found himself standing in front of the shop once more; he took a deep breath, stepped inside, and heard Aziraphale singing.

“Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium!” The angel busied himself by straightening a stack of paperwork, drawing indecipherable notations in pencil here and there, and stirred several spoonfuls of sugar too many into his cup. “Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heilig-- oh! Hello, my dear, I hadn’t expected--”

“Oh, I just thought you might like to...”

Aziraphale was watching him with interest. “Yes?”

Crowley glanced away, suddenly loosing his nerve, and finished distractedly, “Did I leave my gloves here this afternoon?”

“Gloves?” Aziraphale shook his head. “No, I don’t believe so.”

“Oh.” He paused. “Well, if you could keep an eye out for them?”

“Certainly, yes. Would you like a spot of tea?”

“No, I’ve got to be off,” Crowley said, settling onto the settee, though he took the proffered cup and saucer. The room was filled with the soft scent of roses; there were dozens of them, red petals laced by shadow and lamplight. The tea was warm and sweet. He arched a brow. “How did your lonely hearts club meeting go?”

“Er, well.” Aziraphale appeared to consider his words. “It didn’t go at all, actually, and I fear that it will be postponed indefinitely. There was some sort of ghastly car crash in Oxford Street this afternoon, you see.”

Crowley struggled to keep his tone casual. “Was there?”

“Most inconvenient.” Aziraphale nodded and sipped his tea.

\------------------

[1] Aziraphale had often admonished him for being of the outspoken opinion that no piece of writing was worth beginning unless the ending was good, a habit that he picked up whilst judging Athenian drama competitions. Even then, if for some odd reason someone other than Dionysus was left standing when the hypothetical curtain was drawn, he wanted nothing to do with it. It seemed a straightforward enough thing to expect.

[2] The author suggested the use of fleas to catch the mites, spiders to catch the fleas, common sparrows to catch the spiders, and cats to catch the common sparrows, though if all else failed, one was to either liberally apply talcum powder, thereby stifling the mites, douse the scalp with sealing wax, or buy a new wig.

[3] Entry: Saint Val•en•tine’s Day, _n_., 1. A day for the exchange of tokens of affection. 2. A very old notion alluded to by Shakespeare which suggests that it is on this day that birds begin to mate. 3. One of Crowley’s more dubious achievements (see SINGLETON DISCONTENT and CONSUMER GULLIBILITY; see also ROMANCE)

[4] In a line from his epic pastoral poem “Michael,” William Wordsworth claimed that one would be hard-pressed to find a more beatific gateway to the underworld, though he later scrapped it after hearing of Lake Buena Vista, Florida, a legendary land which is rife with enormous rodents to this very day.


End file.
